Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to communication networks and more particularly to methods and systems for providing security in a communication network by selectively enabling various features for scanning user traffic streams.
Description of the Related Art
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a reference to a resource (e.g., a web page, a file, a database, etc.) that specifies the destination location of the resource on a computer network, such as the Internet. When accessed via an Internet-enabled device, the URL enables a user to reach the destination location based on the Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with the domain name portion of the URL. Examples of Internet-enabled devices include, but are not limited to, laptop computers, desktop computers, smartphones and tablet computers. The destination location specified by a URL may be trusted and may include various cloud services, for example, Microsoft Windows Update™ and Apple iTunes™. Accessing such cloud services is safe for the device. In contrast, the destination location may be malicious or corrupted and thus when accessed may harm the device through malware attacks and/or undesirable (bot-driven) behavior.
In conventional methods and systems, to protect devices from such attacks various security features are deployed while accessing any URL. These security features are deployed regardless of the URL being associated with a trusted or a malicious destination location. Examples of such security features include Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) deep inspection, Transport Layer Security (TLS) deep inspection, antivirus scanning, antispyware scanning, antimalware scanning, sandbox analysis, pop-up blocking, packet logging, detailed content logging and stateful packet inspection. Deploying these security features while accessing each URL consumes a considerable amount of system resources and as a result has an impact on the system performance.